What are stars?
by Lugrpa
Summary: Annie Ross dreams of stars. Everyone has marked her as crazy for this, even her own parents. The only person she can talk to is her brother. But one day, the Doctor appears, and he's about to show Annie just how real stars are.
1. Chapter 1

"AH!" I woke with a scream for the fifth time that night. I looked desperately around my room, not sure what I was even looking for. My brother came crashing in the room this time.

"Annie, for hell's sake, what is going on with you?" He asked, trying to be as calm as he could at four in the morning.

"I'm sorry Ryan, I swear to you, I don't know what's going on." I sighed as I tangled my hands in the blankets.

He sat on the edge of my bed and put his firm hand on my shoulder. He sighed. "Just.. try to go back to sleep, kay A?"

"Don't call me 'A' you know I don't like it. But yeah, I'll try." I smirked. Before he shuffled back to bed, he gave me a quick hug. Throwing my body back into the warmth of my bed, I willed myself back to sleep. When I woke in the morning, I wasn't tired at all. "That's odd..." I thought aloud.

I walked over to my desk, and ripped a sheet of paper from my notebook. Digging through on my my drawers, I wrapped my fingers around my pencil case. From the case, I took out three colors: Dark blue, yellow, and a creamy white color. Half an hour later my mom called me down for breakfast.

"Annie Grace Ross, get down here, your food is getting cold!" She yelled impatiently.

"Coming!" I grabbed my drawing and ran down the stairs. When I reached the kitchen table, I shoved my drawing in the front pocket of my backpack. Unfortunately, my mom caught a quick peek at what I had drawn.

She sighed deeply. "Annie." She warned. "Show me that drawing."

"Damn it." I muttered under my breath so no one could hear. I handed her my drawing for the night sky, scattered with brilliant colored stars.

"Oh for the love of God, you know there are no such things as stars! Their a fairy tale, you need to learn that Annie." My dad snapped at me.

"They're real I tell you! That's what my dream last night was about, and it was amazing. Somewhere out there, there ARE stars!"

"A, calm down." My brother touched my arm gently.

"No, I will not calm down! Quit calling me A." I snapped at Ryan. Instantly I regretted it. My brother and I were best friends, even though he was four years older than me. But we could tell each other anything, plus, he was the only one who would listen and not make fun of my star fantasies.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap." I told him.

"Whatever, I have to run to school." He mumbled, got up from the table, grabbed his keys and left without another word. Shaking his head, my dad got up and followed.

My mom came up behind me. "You should be ashamed Annie. Your school bus will be here soon." She scolded, and left for work as well.

When I heard the door to the garage close, I got up from my seat and walked behind the kitchen counter. On it, I saw my picture ripped in two. This isn't the first time one of my parents has ripped a drawing. Taking a half in each hand, I walked out to the backyard while waiting for my bus.

I sat down and leaned against our apple tree. Closing my eyes, I hoped and prayed. "I wish there were such things as stars." I repeated countless times, while running my fingers over my drawing. All of a sudden, there was a noise. It sounded like the whirring of engines. I looked behind me, and a blue police box appeared. "What the hell?" I jumped up and walked over to the box.

A man with floppy brown hair came dashing out of the box, and he ran right into me. With him on top of me, we collapsed on the ground. "Oi watch it!" I yelled.

"Sorry bout that!" He yelped. He held out his hand to me and helped me up. "And you are?" The man asked.

"Annie Ross. But I should be the one asking who you are, considering this is my yard." I replied sarcastically.

He laughed. "I'm the Doctor. Oh this is your yard eh? I must be intruding then."

"The Doctor? Interesting name. How did you just... appear? That blue box of yours, what is it?"

He spun around and let the door slowly swing open. I must of looked like an idiot with the look I had plastered on my face. "This is my time machine. Care for a look?" The Doctor asked.

"Time machine." I whispered to myself.

The Doctor laughed. "Yup, time machine. Saying it probably isn't going to change anything." He took my hand and led me inside. "Welcome to my TARDIS. That's time and relative dimension in space." He gestured to the room with his hand.

"Wow. This is... absolutely amazing. Breathtaking." I said in complete awe.

The Doctor reached down and took my drawing from my hand. "What's this?" He said while examining it.

"That's my picture. But please don't start about how, 'There's no such thing as stars' and how I've completely lost it. Trust me, I get enough of that at home, and school." I ranted.

"Oh Annie. Annie Ross. You have no idea how brilliant you are. Stars are just the beginning. All of time and space is out there, you just have to look."

I smiled until it hurt. "So what you're saying is, there's such a thing as stars?"

"Of course." He smiled. "Would you want to see one?"

"Is that possible?"

The Doctor ran up to a big control panel in the middle of the room and pulled a couple levers, then spun back towards me and flashed a devilish smile. "Are you ready to see your first star?"

He ran over and pulled the doors open. There we were, floating in the middle of space, face to face with millions upon millions of stars.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi guys, sorry this chapter is so short. It's spring break (starting tomorrow) for me, and I'm going to Florida, so I wanted to get a little something out there before I left! Enjoy, and I will update when I get home! Which is next.. Sunday? ENJOY AND I LOVE ALL MY REVIEWERS! **

* * *

><p>"How the hell does this work?" I whispered, utterly breathless.<p>

"Like I said, time travel." The Doctor smiled at me. Before I could manage another word of nonsense, the Doctor gave me a light shove out the door. Instead of plunging down, I just floated there. He reached his hand out to me so I wouldn't stray to far from the TARDIS.

I giggled loudly. "This is amazing! Thank you!" I gave him an enormous hug as I came floating back to the ground.

While running back to the console, he yelled over his shoulder. "Any time. Now, are you ready for your first real adventure?"

My jaw dropped a small bit. "REAL adventure? Just seeing a REAL star was REAL enough for me!" The Doctor laughed. "So where are you taking us?"

After fiddling with some levers, he ran over and made yet another spectacle of throwing the doors open. "Appalachia! One of the best places to vacation!" We stepped out of the TARDIS, and were immediately welcomed by a wave of hot, beach air.

"Neither of us are dressed for this sort of weather." I pointed out. Then, the Doctor made a shooing motion with his hands, indicating to go back in the TARIDS.

"Don't worry, I'm always prepared. There is a closet down the stairs and to your left. Should be something your size in there!" Wow, he seemed to have everything in this place. After I had found a suitable swimsuit, I ran back out of the TARDIS and met the Doctor under a beach umbrella.

As the Doctor and I relaxed under the umbrella, a sand crab scuttled over and pinched my toe. I laughed and the Doctor flashed me a puzzled grin. "That didn't hurt?"

I shook my head. "Not at all. You know that feeling when you get hurt in a dream? It hurts, but not a lot?" He nodded. "That's how it felt. Just like a dream." And for a brief second, the entire world seemed to stop. I looked around, and everyone was frozen. When I blinked, everything was normal again. Odd.

"Did you just see what I saw?" The Doctor asked.

"If you're referring to everyone suddenly freezing, then yes."

"That was weird. Back to the TARDIS." He stood up and pulled me up with him. Just then, a thought crossed my mind that had been bothering me for a while.

"Doctor, why did you bring me along with you?" I asked innocently.

"You wanted to see a star." He stated simply.

"Besides the obvious." I retorted.

He stuck his tongue out at me like a child. "Well, I get lonely." He replied a second later.

"I couldn't have guessed." I smiled sweetly and sarcastically at him. "I don't know, things just seem to be.. odd?"

"Odd? How do you mean?" His curiosity peaked by my question.

"It almost seems unreal."

"I know what you mean..." He trailed off. We had reached the TARDIS. "Ok, so, now to figure out what caused this little 'skip' in time, if that's what you would call it."


	3. Chapter 3

**So.. uh... haha funny story. I said I'd update this the Sunday i got back from spring break, yet that was almost two months ago? I'M SORRY! I got caught up in my other fanfics, and my book I'm writing that's not on Fanfic, and school****'s been SO busy. **

**Also, guess what? In the first chapter of this story I found a mistake... I used the word 'their' instead of 'they're' and It's frustrating me so much. I can't go back and change it though :'( So, enough of my rambling, READ AND ENJOY! ;)**

**I DON'T OWN DOCTOR WHO OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS.**

* * *

><p>The Doctor pulled around the scanner and hopped up on a seat. "SO! Random skip in time, what's causing this exactly?"<p>

My expression was questionable, staring at him blankly. "You're asking ME this? How would I know anything? I'm useless." I muttered.

He jumped down and took my by the shoulders. "Annie. No, no. Don't say that! You're not useless. You can be brilliant."

I smirked. "Can be?"

He lightly smacked my arm. "Oh shut up. You know what I mean."

"Well, do you want to hear what my guess is then?" My left eyebrow raised in question.

"I'd love to hear what you have." He bowed dramatically, indicating for me to go ahead.

"Okay, so my idea: You know how in a dream, everything skips a beat? Well, sometimes it does. Maybe, something is happening that's putting the universe in a 'dream like' state." I shrugged my shoulders.

"That's actually not a bad idea." He dug in his pocket and removed his sonic screwdriver. "Damn pockets. Why does everything have to be bigger on the inside." He muttered to himself, causing me to giggle a bit. He looked up, with a childish look in his eyes and smiled.

With his sonic screwdriver in hand, he waltzed over and fiddled around with the console, and his sonic. "I'm rewiring my sonic screwdriver to the main core of the TARDIS's hard drive. Now, we'll be able to detect any sort of possible dream state affection the life patterns of the universe."

"You brilliant man." I smiled.

"So, tell me what you know about Earth's history. Like, why there are no stars anymore?" He questioned me.

"Well, three hundred years ago there was a woman, people call her all different things, but the most accepted theory is that she was a time traveler named Donna Noble. There were stars alright, and she loved them to death. But one day, something happened, and Donna lost her memory. Everything, just gone! They say the stars vanished with her memory."

The Doctor's face was utterly shell shocked. "Donna Noble?"

"Yeah, that's her name. Why?"

"Donna... she traveled with me. She consumed all the energy from the time vortex and I had to take it out of her. She lost all memory of anything time travel related in the process. Doesn't remember a thing about me." He said, completely crest fallen.

I wrapped an arm around his shoulders comfortingly. "It's not your fault, if that's what you're getting at. I'm sure Donna loved traveling with you, and all those memories she still has. They're just locked away somewhere in the back of her brain. Like I said, It's just a theory that the stars disappeared with her."

Her looked at me, sadness clearly present in his gaze. "I let things go to shit twice now. How can I forgive myself?" His heads dropped into his hands.

"Twice? What happened the first time? If you don't mind me asking." My hand softly resting on his arm. He looked up at me, pain etched into every line on his face.

"I don't mind. As I've told you, I'm a Time Lord. There was an entire empire of my species, and they were so magnificent. Our home planet Gallifrey was the most breathtakingly beautiful planet ever. The orange burnt skies, the meadows blossoming

with a rainbow of colors that just made you want to roll through them. At night, you could see countless stars, planets, and the moons of all those planets. The sight could make any man, no matter how strong, weep like a baby." He shook his head and chuckled.

I reached over and took his hand, encouraging him to keep going.

"Then there came a war. An enormous war, bigger than any of us had ever seen I reckon. The Daleks versus the Time Lords. Ten million Dalek battle ships were destroyed, but every Time Lord was lost. Technically speaking, they're still alive, just time locked. But the time lock is irreversible, they will never be able to escape." His eyes shone, wet with threatening tears.

I hugged him so tight, as if the tighter I hugged him, the less pain he'd feel. "Doctor, I wish there was something I could do. You're so brave. Honestly? Words can't describe how courageous you were."

A smile broke out on his face. "That has to be the sweetest thing someone has told me in a while."

All of a sudden, the sonic started to beep, indicating some sort of dream like presence, and a disheveled man appeared out of nowhere. "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my TARDIS?" The Doctor snapped at the man.

He cackled wickedly. "I'm the dream lord. Basically, I'm here to make your life hell."

I rolled my eyes and scoffed. "Bit forward aren't you?"

The dream lord ignored my comment. "Doctor, you can choose."

"Choose what?" The Doctor demanded.

"Save the universe, or..."

"Or what!"

"Save the girl." The dream lord stated simply, with a smile as wide as the cheshire cats.

My heart stopped beating for a second. I was suddenly gasping for air, my hands at my own throat. "D-D-Doctor." With my knees shaking, my weak body collapsed to the ground, my hands clawing at my throat, trying to get a deep breath of air.

"STOP IT! STOP IT NOW!" The Doctor yelled. Then, I could breath again. The next words the Doctor spoke seemed so distant. "If I didn't choose to save Annie, what would happen to her?"

"Well, that depends, what would you want to happen to her?" The dream lord sang.

"I'm assuming I only have tragic options." The Doctor spat through gritted teeth, causing the dream lord to laugh like a school girl and nod. Then, the dream lord whispered something in the Doctor's ear. "No." His jaw clenched, and he sharply shook his head once.

"Wh-what is it?" I managed to choke out.

"Stay out of this girl." The dream lord snapped at me. "You'll only get burned." He turned to the Doctor. "So Doctor, what will it be? The universe, or the girl?"

He clenched his jaw again. "The universe." My head dropped, along with my spirits.

"As you say so." The dream lord snapped his fingers, and I screamed.

"AHH!" I jolted up, grabbing the sheets in a death grip. I swung my head around the room. My room. The door to my bedroom opened, and Ryan walked in.

"Annie, I just came in here two minutes ago, mom and dad are as angry as hell with you! What is up?" He sat on the edge of my bed.

I flung my body into his arms. "Oh Ryan. It was just a dream. It was all a dream." Sobs wracked my entire body, I was a shaking mess in his arms.

"Shhh, that's right. It was only a dream Annie."

I sobbed harder. That was the thing, it _was_ a dream. It was all just a dream.


End file.
